Editorial: A tax increase conservatives love

Saturday

Nov 11, 2017 at 3:45 PM

The Capital-Journal Editorial Board

When Kansas families purchase groceries, they’re paying a higher sales tax than anyone else in the country. According to the Tax Foundation, Kansas is one of seven states that taxes groceries at the same rate as other purchases – a particularly hefty burden considering our overall sales tax rate of 6.5 percent. Kansas imposes the eighth-highest sales tax across the board – a rate the Legislature increased in 2015 to offset the cost of Gov. Sam Brownback’s massive income tax cuts. While lawmakers considered reducing the grocery tax last session, the state’s revenue situation was so dire that they decided to wait.

It’s worth remembering what Republican lawmakers had to say when the GOP-dominated Legislature passed the $432 million tax increase that launched the sales tax from an already-high 6.15 percent to 6.5 percent. Brownback was thrilled with the new taxes: "I greatly appreciate the hard work of the Legislature in passing the budget and a tax bill that meets our constitutional obligation to provide sufficient revenue to fund budget appropriations." He went on to commend lawmakers for "coming together in a spirit of cooperation and compromise to do what is right for Kansas." Who knew Brownback could be so in love with a huge tax increase?

When the Legislature passed Senate Bill 30 – the tax reform package projected to bring in $1.2 billion over two years – Brownback immediately announced that he would veto it. He decried the bill’s "harmful impacts on Kansas families" and declared that it would "leave our citizens poorer." He refused to allow Kansans to "have more of their hard-earned money taken from them." But for someone so concerned about "draconian tax increases on Kansas families," isn’t it odd that Brownback had no problem signing legislation that hit Kansas families with the highest grocery tax in the nation?

Brownback also complained about the impact SB 30 would have on businesses in the state. But he might want to think about the owners of Kansas grocery stores who’ve lost customers thanks to the grocery tax, which is so high that Kansans who live in border counties shop in neighboring states to avoid it. According to a 2016 study conducted by researchers at Wichita State University, "Border counties experience lower growth in per capita food sales than interior counties by almost $5 per person" – a consequence they attribute to the grocery tax. The report also notes that city and county taxes make the sales tax "as high as 10.5 percent in some areas," and that was before the Legislature increased the tax to 6.5 percent.

While Kansas offers a tax refund on groceries, you must be 55 or older, suffer from blindness or another disability, have a dependent child younger than 18 or earn less than $25,800 per year to qualify. These conditions exclude a substantial proportion of middle class Kansans.

Of course, Brownback isn’t the only one who has demonstrated his hypocrisy on tax increases – many conservatives in the Legislature did the same. Rep. John Whitmer is a Wichita Republican who diligently repeated the standard conservative talking point on taxes last session: "Our state government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem." As such, Whitmer was resolutely opposed to the passage of SB 30. But he wasn’t so committed to tax cuts when he voted for the sales tax increase in 2015: "I voted for something I am not proud of," Whitmer said tearfully in 2015. "But I feel it’s what the folks need."

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